MBFS CEO Mark Ritter and a guest from his team catch up on the latest happenings at MBFS, the credit union industry, and other odds and ends.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• (00:00) Introduction: Meet Craig Page
• (02:54) New ways of making a positive customer experience
• (05:44) Outdated ways of advertising, the Sunday newspaper and Black Friday shopping
• (08:42) The new ways of networking and connection: LinkedIn and Social Media like TikTok
• (12:49) MBFS is hiring - reach out to Mark by video call

KEY TAKEAWAYS: 

• Digital transformation has shifted business lending from traditional methods, such as cold calling and print ads, to platforms like LinkedIn, enabling more authentic and efficient connections.
• Customer experience is now king. Instead of focusing on volume-driven sales tactics, successful business lenders prioritize building relationships and delivering a seamless customer experience, which drives long-term loyalty and referrals.
• As in-person meetings decline, adapting marketing strategies to virtual environments through video calls, social media, and personalized digital content is essential for staying relevant and competitive.

RESOURCE LINKS

Mark Ritter - Website

Mark Ritter - LinkedIn

[00:00:00] Mark Ritter - Host: Hello, this is Mark Ritter, your host of Credit Union Conversations and CEO of MBFS. We're a business lending QSO that helps credit unions across the country and Puerto Rico I might add help out and expand their business lending program with a wide variety of services. We would love to talk with you about what your credit union's up to today to see if we can help out.

[00:00:35] Craig Page - Guest: mark? I'm great. Thank you for having me back on the show. I appreciate it.

[00:00:55] That's correct. And so I like to [00:01:00] talk to people. I like to have conversations with people. I like to do presentations and talking through the business needs a, as my wife can tell you, I am one of the least creative and outdated people there is around. I like stick figures. When I write something and do presentations, it's basically my name and it's a couple text.

[00:01:33] Craig Page - Guest: think I, I say you're not giving yourself enough credit, but it has been a lot of fun and you have been very gracious about letting commit and putting a new spin on something that is well established. And a lot of following MPFS, there's no widely in the industry.

[00:01:59] Mark Ritter - Host: [00:02:00] when I was looking at, in today's episode and thinking about topics, one thing that popped up in my mind, I. Is, you know, we're both a little grizz. We're both what I would call grizzled veterans have been through the cycles, have our stories from the early days that would make the, I guess they're the Gen Z.

[00:02:53] Craig Page - Guest: Great. Que, you know, the one that came to mind is, is we're all used to call centers, but. The majority [00:03:00] of those call centers that exist today are to enhance the customer experience. I remember having call centers where there were just banks and people telemarketing. They were all outbound. They weren't in inbound, they were outbound trying to get people to buying our business or invest with you or what, whatever the case may be.

[00:03:24] Mark Ritter - Host: You know, we've talked about my glory days of college where I packed up after college and went, lived in Middle Tennessee for a couple years and my first job down there was just that a call center of, and all it was was a telephone in front of you where you are dialing the phone.

[00:04:02] Craig Page - Guest: Well, and what was the source of all those, those lists? They were phone books, I mean.

[00:04:21] Mark Ritter - Host: Yeah, we, we made a reference to my daughter and just in passing, my wife said about the yellow pages of which my daughter, who's 22 years old.

[00:04:40] Craig Page - Guest: or, or what it's for. Exactly. My daughter's a year older, same thing. No idea what the yellow pages are and

[00:04:58] Okay. We would sit in [00:05:00] Alco and decide rates and we had to structure the meeting around the cutoff for the Sunday adver, the Sunday newspaper, because that was the end all, be all of advertising to get your message out. There was the Sunday newspaper,

[00:05:26] If you were curious what competitors were paying, you'd look in the lunch ads or your competitors to see who was looking to hire, and it was a way that we also recruit a lot of help is looking at the yellow page of, of the newspaper, sorry.

[00:05:53] Black Friday shopper, you know, and at the time would also go out at midnight. So [00:06:00] we would get that big, huge newspaper with all the specials in and advertisements and what's on sale. So I would go out and get the newspaper, but I would take out all the ads she wanted and then just laid the newspaper down as if I haven't looked at it.

[00:06:30] Craig Page - Guest: I remember spending many a cold night waiting for Black Friday to roll around camping out overnight to get a computer, for example, because it was advertised in the newspaper, I remember.

[00:06:54] Craig Page - Guest: It was a numbers game. Absolutely.

[00:07:18] And when I was in my early twenties,

[00:07:42] They were all handwritten letters and the responses were all letters as well. It's interesting,

[00:08:09] Get people these business cards, handout and I have this box that I haven't, you know, I haven't cracked this box for six or seven years.

[00:08:42] Mark Ritter - Host: Yeah. And what do you use today that you didn't before? Because used to it has set it number one for me, right there it is. You know, I, it used to be, there was conference call systems, but they were horrible and Okay, who's there? Is everybody there? Okay. Yes. Put your, [00:09:00] say your name and, and you know, you hope they worked.

[00:09:12] Craig Page - Guest: Absolutely. We spend a lot, I spend a lot of time. On video calls, in person meetings are very rare for me anymore, but I remember Mark going back a number of years when I was fairly newly married. One of my wife's friends, he worked for a Fortune 500 company, me notification, uh, linked to join this thing hook LinkedIn, which I had never heard of before.

[00:09:54] Mark Ritter - Host: It, it's always funny 'cause I'm the grumpy guy who refuses to get on Facebook. [00:10:00] So I have an account with no friends and no connections and I don't follow anything.

[00:10:11] Mark Ritter - Host: And we pound our fist that like, we're not, you know, out there on Facebook and some of these other areas, but we're, I, I must, you know, I keep LinkedIn on the background because I, I wanna find out what the news is and that's how I connect with people.

[00:10:27] Craig Page - Guest: need to know something. I ask my 23, 20 4-year-old daughter and she looked up on Facebook for

[00:10:48] I haven't made that leap yet, though.

[00:10:54] Mark Ritter - Host: Yeah, it, it's really, you know, amazing, just the difference in marketing and [00:11:00] communication and just how efficient it is today, you know? And, and you said about. You don't have as many in-person meetings. Unfortunately, it's conference season for me and because if there's one thing I hate in this world is getting on an airplane, I, I, I made a post.

[00:11:39] Craig Page - Guest: It is. I enjoyed traveling when it was enjoyable. It has become much different. I remember fondly back in the late eighties when I worked for a company owned two airplanes and that was the way to travel.

[00:12:02] Mark Ritter - Host: And, and, and my wife and I were at a restaurant recently that used to, we used to go to regularly when we were dating and early married and haven't been to for years. And when we left we were like, wow, that really stinks.

[00:12:35] Craig Page - Guest: It is making connections and dealing with airports and the charity, TSA and all that. It's challenging to have to take your patient's pill before you head out the door for travel.

[00:13:17] For, for new people after thinking it's a flat headcount. So hopefully, you know, it's, we, we haven't touched the headcount for a couple years, but it's gonna be a good, it's gonna be a fun run, building it back out with this new world. So

[00:13:38] Mark Ritter - Host: or the Sunday paper.

[00:13:55] Craig Page - Guest: So thank you. Thank you, mark. It's always a pleasure.

[00:14:02] Please join us now on our new weekly format where we'll be dropping episodes every Tuesday. Thanks a lot. Have a great day, and see you soon.